Ghost
by KessieHill
Summary: Alex wakes up again in 2008 and tries to get on with her life and forget 1981. However she is hindered by the image of a certain DCI who haunts her. Gene/Alex.
1. Reflection

A/N : This little ficlet was inspired by the song below, and was originally Spuffy, but I though it'd work better with Gene and Alex, cos A) there's the whole her seeing ghosts people from the other time thingy, and B) cos there's not nearly enough Ashes to Ashes fanfiction out there. Incase you hadn't noticed by the awfulness, this is my first fanfic I've had the guts to post, and is un-betaed.

"There's still a little bit of your taste in my mouth

There's still a little bit of you laced with my doubt

It's still a little hard to say what's going on

There's still a little bit of your ghost, your witness

There's still a little piece of your face I haven't kissed

You step a little closer each day

Still I can't see what's going on"

Vienna Teng - Cannonball

"If I turn around you'll be gone" Alex whispered to the image in the mirror. She knew how it worked now. If she dared look at him through anything other than the corner of her eye, he'd disappear, and she'd be left alone again in the room that didn't feel like it was hers any more. The situation was nothing short of torture, stuck with blurred visions when she wanted nothing more than to run to him, to breathe in the scent of cigarettes she never thought she'd miss, to hold him close and feel his warmth against her, so she knew she hadn't gone insane.

Gene didn't reply to her comment. He never did. He would only watch her, occasionally lighting a cigarette as she talked about her day over a glass of red wine.

"They let me go home from the hospital yesterday. They wanted to keep me longer; it's not everyday someone wakes up from a 3 on the coma scale for no apparent reason, but I was desperate; I needed to get home. Only, when I got there it wasn't. Home I mean."

She paused another moment to wait for a reply; "Bolly, yer makin' about as much sense as a Thatcherite feminist with a speech impediment." or something else so completely Gene Hunt to say. But it remained quiet yet again, an awkward silence that was finally broken by Alex's sigh.

"Now I know I'm insane" she muttered "No one can silence the great Gene Hunt. Even the doctors think I didn't come back right. They've sent me to see a psychologist! Can you believe that? The cheek! I can do a perfectly good job myself, I don't need some undergraduate unsensitivle yprodding at my subconscious. Not that I'm going. 'Cos there's going to be questions and I don't think I can answer them. They're gonna ask what I did there, and what am I meant to tell them? That I went back to 1981, woke up dressed like a prostitute -hell, they'll have enough fun with that one alone- where I got rescued by a - how did Sam put it?- an overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine stained borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding? And that's not even the best part! Shortly after, while being locked in a freezer by an epileptic, ex conman and his wife, I have an epiphany, and realise I've fallen for said nicotine stained homophobe, and that in some weird way he loves me too. Which consequently leads to mind-boggingly good sex wherever we can find a flat surface and a locked door. Until there's one day, where we're lying there in the store cupboard, and the door opens, but we don't notice. We're so lost that we barely notice the bullets... and then everything is too white and too clean... and I should be worrying that I've been shot... or that I don't know where I am... but all I'm thinking is Gene should be here, because he always saves me... and I...and I just can't go on." She sobbed, slamming her fists into the mirror, accentuating every word with another punch. "You hear that Gene? I. Can't. Go. On. And you don't even do anything! You just stand there while I'm dying inside! You don't even care! Do you? DO YOU?" On the final syllable the glass cracked, and Gene was gone from his vantage point on her bed. Instead, he was right up close to her, closer than she had ever seen him here, one gloved finger curled in her hair. She could smell the alcohol on his breath and the cigarette smoke that clung to him like a second skin. She could feel the electric tingle that came hand in hand with his presence. And she could hear his voice- gruff, but soft and tender at the same time- whisper in her ear.

"Bolly?"

"Yes Gene?"

"Yer making about as much sense as a Thatcherite feminist with a speech impediment."

---

They fell asleep tangled up in eachother's embrace: Alex's skinny frame entwined with Gene's rather large one. She remembered talking long into the night, without need for alcohol to help the flow of the conversation. She remembered laughing as he struggled to fit in her single bed, and him punching her playfully on the shoulder in return, making a mumbled excuse about being big boned. And she remembered feeling like she was alive, and home again. The moment felt so perfect that when her alarm clock rang in the morning, she didn't want to move, she was quite happy to stay in a constant state of limbo curled up in her sheets. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and leaned over to where Gene had been sleeping next to her.

"I'm alive." she whispered. "I'm alive. I'm home."

He didn't reply. What she had mistaken for his body was just her duvet wrapped across her arms, one corner stained red from where she must have knocked over one of the bottles of wine that littered her room. Alex froze. It had all been a dream. A delusion- no doubt bought upon her by the copious amounts of alcohol she had been drinking. But none the less she stayed there, trying to imagine he was there again. She lay there completely unmoving for hours, until her daughter entered, handed her a mug of coffee, and asked her what the tall man who left her room in the middle of the night had been so upset about.


	2. Deer in the Headlights

AN; I only ever meant for this to be a one shot, but a couple of people were asking for another chapter, and as we have no more A2A

for a whole year, I figured "Hell, why not?". It means that the story is ever so slightly lacking in a plot, and that I've upped the rating

to M, cos it gets pretty dark in this chap, and probably will be like this for quite a few chapters, until I decide to lay of the angst a wee

bit and give Gene and Alex a happy ending :) Please comment / criticize, I will actually reply this time, as my email was royally

mucked up when I posted the last chapter. Enjoy!

(Oh, and it's probably obvious, but flashbacks, of which there will be plenty, are in italics.)

"- Oh don't cry Mummy! Why are you upset? It wasn't that man, was it? The tall one, who left really early in the morning? He woke

me up, kept on shouting about Brolly or Bobby or someone. I bet he was drunk. People shouldn't drink really though, cos it's awfully

bad for them y'know." Molly said, less than subtlety displaying her disdain for the large amounts of alcohol her mother had been

drinking. Alex didn't get the hint. She shot up as the meaning of what Molly had just said sunk in. Gene was here. Not dead, not an

alcohol induced delusion. Real. Alive. Leaning on the bed post for support she stood up. The world around her was spinning, but

Alex was too shocked to even notice.

"I need to go out Mols, are you alright with that?" Alex said, making a weak attempt at a smile. "Can you call Evan and ask him to

stop by?"

"Mum! The doctor said that you're not meant to go out yet, that things might not be completely sorted out."

Too right, Alex thought. She should be a bullet ridden corpse lying in a store cupboard in 1981, and so should - no - Gene shouldn't

even _exist_, let alone be here, now, alive and well. She needed answers, and she wasn't going to get them lying in bed drinking her own

weight in alcohol. Alex turned to face her daughter.

"Listen, Molly, I'm only going to be at the library, I just need to sort some things out. I'll be O.K. I promise." she said sincerely, then

grabbed a long coat and a pair of sunglasses from the dresser and swiftly slammed the door shut behind her, before Molly could

remind her how her last promise had ended.

--

Alex drove haphazardly, somehow avoiding crashing the car into the rush hour traffic as she made her way home. One car behind

her tooted their horn and she gave them the finger, the other hand adjusting the rear view mirror so she could see the ass hole who

had a problem with her driving. She didn't know why she was surprised when she saw her view was blocked by a pair of very intense

blue eyes. It took all her will power not to turn around, but somehow she managed it, long enough to say what she had been reciting

in her head since she had read the articles in the library.

"I'm sorry, Gene. I didn't know. I truly didn't know. I sat there and complained about the annoying Asian nurse and how I loathed the

hospital food, when you had to..."

She recalled the faded newsprint in her head: 5th November 1981...Massacre at London Metropolitan Police Station...15 killed in cold

blood...among the dead were 4 on duty officers, WPC Sharon Granger, DS Ray Carling, DC Christopher Skelton, and... and DI Alex

Drake...And only one survivor. There were other articles too - Remember, remember the 5th of November; Survivor of November

5th massacre pays tribute to fallen colleagues; Police no closer to finding the 5/11 murderer- But she hadn't been able to read them,

as her tear filled eyes had made the electronic lighting cast stars on the glass of the microfilm. The tears were threatening to come

back again, but she shook them away quickly, and tried to regain her composure.

"When you had to lay there, and listen to every person you'd ever respected, cared about... loved... die. I'm sorry for being so naive, for

thinking that nothing could be worse than you dying. I'm just so, so sorry."

He wouldn't catch her eye. That was unusual, he always just watched her, he rarely did anything else. There was a cold empty silence

before he replied.

"Two years Bols. That was how long I made it. Two years of dragging m'self outta bed every soddin' morning, knowin' that I didn't

have a single fuckin' thing to live for. I bloody dreamt about that day every night, and thought about it everyday. And then I couldn't

take it. I got outta bed, drunk a stupid amount of alcohol and drove the Quattro off a bridge. Anything to get rid of the sight of your

dead body out of my mind. Only I woke up again, and you were still there, sitting up in an hospital bed like you'd just seen a - Alex!

ALEX!!"

The mirror smashed into thousands of pieces, along with the wind shield. The shards cut at Alex's face as the force of the crash threw

her backwards, icy cold scratches on her pale skin. Along with the glass came a tiny fragment of memory, strangely vivid and bright as

she started to lose conciousness.

--

_"Fireworks Bols, you comin'?"_

_"What? What are you talking about Gene?"_

_"Guy Fawkes Alex, it's t'day. Y'know: Remember, remember the 5th o' November?"_


End file.
